Autistic Pride vs. the Autism Industry
Originally posted July 2005
While browsing the Internet for autistic pride sites, I came across a godawful site that was advertising some cutesy medication timer intended for gadget-loving aspies. A testimonial allegedly written by a parent of a young adult aspie cheerily declared, "When its alarm goes off, he has fun taking his medication or vitamins now and can take pride in his compliance and extra independence!"
It was enough to make me want to look for a good supplier of barf bags. Anybody out there reading this page who takes pride in being a compliant pill-gulping drone and feels extra independent because of it? I didn't think so.
Of course, advertisements like that aren't even meant to be seen by aspies. Such products are marketed exclusively to parents. It's part of a double-barreled bullshit attack by the autism industry, in which parents are first misled into believing that their children are hopelessly mentally defective, then barraged with promises that buying the right products and services can lead to "extra independence." In this context, "extra independence" means a lifetime of passively consuming the autism industry's wares while causing minimal nuisance to one's parents by reason of one's existence.
This despicable marketing strategy includes the recent efforts by the autism industry to paint the neurodiversity movement as some sort of major radical threat to the right of parents to make decisions for their underage children. It's a ridiculous accusation made by a calculating, amoral industry that sees a major threat to its own profits in the possibility that some parents may insist on treating their autistic children as healthy, capable human beings. Far from being anti-parent, a large number of neurodiversity activists are in fact parents, and they are seeking to end prejudice and discrimination against autistic families.
The accusation of interference with parents' decision-making is particularly ironic when you consider the extent of the autism industry's relentless assault on vulnerable families. Its entire business model is designed to coerce parents into making panicky and uninformed decisions. Ugly personal attacks are routinely made against parents who are unwilling to blindly jump on the bandwagon of "early intervention" through behavioral therapy, special diets, medication, chelation for purported mercury poisoning, or whatever the latest whacko fad happens to be. Kathleen Seidel describes the vicious abuse of parents by quack treatment faddists in Evidence of Venom.
The autism industry's greatest crime against families is that it intentionally seeks to destroy parents' joy and pride in their young children. To ensure a steady supply of new customers, autism is described in the most negative terms imaginable, with the goal of convincing parents that their child is a pathetic, defective sufferer whose birth has blighted the family. The success of this propaganda is measured in how thoroughly all semblance of a happy family life has been extinguished.
And then these filthy slimebuckets have the incredible chutzpah to accuse civil rights activists of interfering with parents.
They can take their quack treatments and medication timers and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.
While browsing the Internet for autistic pride sites, I came across a godawful site that was advertising some cutesy medication timer intended for gadget-loving aspies. A testimonial allegedly written by a parent of a young adult aspie cheerily declared, "When its alarm goes off, he has fun taking his medication or vitamins now and can take pride in his compliance and extra independence!"
It was enough to make me want to look for a good supplier of barf bags. Anybody out there reading this page who takes pride in being a compliant pill-gulping drone and feels extra independent because of it? I didn't think so.
Of course, advertisements like that aren't even meant to be seen by aspies. Such products are marketed exclusively to parents. It's part of a double-barreled bullshit attack by the autism industry, in which parents are first misled into believing that their children are hopelessly mentally defective, then barraged with promises that buying the right products and services can lead to "extra independence." In this context, "extra independence" means a lifetime of passively consuming the autism industry's wares while causing minimal nuisance to one's parents by reason of one's existence.
This despicable marketing strategy includes the recent efforts by the autism industry to paint the neurodiversity movement as some sort of major radical threat to the right of parents to make decisions for their underage children. It's a ridiculous accusation made by a calculating, amoral industry that sees a major threat to its own profits in the possibility that some parents may insist on treating their autistic children as healthy, capable human beings. Far from being anti-parent, a large number of neurodiversity activists are in fact parents, and they are seeking to end prejudice and discrimination against autistic families.
The accusation of interference with parents' decision-making is particularly ironic when you consider the extent of the autism industry's relentless assault on vulnerable families. Its entire business model is designed to coerce parents into making panicky and uninformed decisions. Ugly personal attacks are routinely made against parents who are unwilling to blindly jump on the bandwagon of "early intervention" through behavioral therapy, special diets, medication, chelation for purported mercury poisoning, or whatever the latest whacko fad happens to be. Kathleen Seidel describes the vicious abuse of parents by quack treatment faddists in Evidence of Venom.
The autism industry's greatest crime against families is that it intentionally seeks to destroy parents' joy and pride in their young children. To ensure a steady supply of new customers, autism is described in the most negative terms imaginable, with the goal of convincing parents that their child is a pathetic, defective sufferer whose birth has blighted the family. The success of this propaganda is measured in how thoroughly all semblance of a happy family life has been extinguished.
And then these filthy slimebuckets have the incredible chutzpah to accuse civil rights activists of interfering with parents.
They can take their quack treatments and medication timers and shove 'em where the sun don't shine.
Labels: activism, advertising, oppression
posted by abfh at
2:40 PM
1 Comments:
There is also a whole new industry of those therapists concentrating on adoptive parents & their insecuriites who claim attachment disorders cause their children's apergers or autism and tell the parents if they don't get treatment their children will hurt themselves, cut themselves, become addicted to drugs, or worse. They push holding time & rebirthing. They are trying to phrase it differently & claim their therapy is misunderstood, because of the publicity about the tragic deaths of some kids with these rebirthing therapies and attempts by some legislatures to label these as abuse.They are seeing any behavior by the kids-shyness -they say-that's trauma from the orphanage; if the child is sociable-they say it's pleasing behavior learned to manipulate the caretakers to pay attention. Don't look someone in the eyes all the time-they insist the kids do so.
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Anonymous, at 1:13 AM
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